Retail surge drives NSE delivery volumes to six-year high

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₹3.92 trillion against traded value of ₹15.03 trillion. “The rising SIP inflow, which tends to be sticky, and increased direct retail participation are fuelling delivery value, which shows the markets are getting deeper," said Shankar Sharma, founder of GQuant Investech, a wealth management company. Sharma expects the uptrend to continue as long as US interest rates are steady and the war in West Asia doesn’t snowball into a regional conflict, which could send oil prices spiralling.

Since June, SIP inflows have been touching record highs every month. In October, they were at ₹ 16,928 crore , up from ₹14,734 crore in June. Total number of SIP accounts grew to 73 million in October from 63.6 million in FY23.

SIP contribution so far in FY24 was at ₹1.07 trillion against ₹1.56 trillion in the whole of FY23. Kotak Mahindra AMC managing director Nilesh Shah is of the view that MF investments have played a role in increasing delivery . Cash-future arbitrage increased delivery volumes with many stock futures contracts becoming compulsorily deliverable, he added.

ArbitSIP rage involves taking two different positions on the same share in the cash and futures markets to exploit price differences. To be sure , apart from value, the number of shares traded has jumped during this fiscal year, with the percentage of delivery (22.5%) to traded quantity at the highest in five years. In FY19, it was at 23.04%.

Retail investors are pumping in money into small- and mid-caps directly and through MFs which pushed up delivery volumes. Direct retail inflows into secondary market totalled ₹21,900 crore in two months to September after ₹21,400 crore was sold in April-July, making them net buyers of ₹500 crore. In mutual funds the net inflows into